Techhttp://www.businessinsider.com/media
en-usTue, 03 Mar 2015 15:19:28 -0500Tue, 03 Mar 2015 15:19:28 -0500The latest news from Techhttp://static3.businessinsider.com/assets/images/bilogo-250x36-wide-rev.pngBusiness Insiderhttp://www.businessinsider.com
http://www.businessinsider.com/material-design-android-5-0-lollipop-2015-3Google 'agonized' over this design element in its latest version of Android (GOOG)http://www.businessinsider.com/material-design-android-5-0-lollipop-2015-3
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 14:47:45 -0500Lisa Eadicicco
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54f60b0d6da811ea4edf0cf2-800-/matias-duarte-google-1.png" border="0" alt="Matias Duarte Google" width="800"></p><p>The bold, colorful new look known as Material Design is a big part of what makes Android 5.0 Lollipop feel different than previous versions of the software.</p>
<p>It was a big undertaking on Google's part. Matias Duarte, vice president of design at Google, said the effort involved in creating Material Design was "kind of like going to the moon" <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/matias-duarte-material-design-android-lollipop-2014-11">in a previous interview with Business Insider</a>.</p>
<p>But there was one particular design element that the Android design team "agonized" over according to Duarte, who answered questions as part of an <a href="https://news.layervault.com/stories/45342-ama-im-matias-duarte-a-vp-of-design-at-google">"Ask Me Anything" thread on website Designer News.</a></p>
<p>One designer with the username "Mitch" noted that the hamburger menu — those three stacked horizontal lines or bars that usually lead to a menu of some sort in an app — has gotten a bad reputation in user interface design since it's been used so frequently. Mitch asked if Google had any "concerns" about that, since the hamburger is used in Material Design occasionally.</p>
<p>Here's what Duarte had to say:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;" dir="ltr">Hell yeah. We agonized over it!</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;" dir="ltr">It’s pretty clear that “hamburgers” can be overused. It’s just too easy for someone trying to “clean up” their app to shove all that stuff in the drawer where it gets lost — out of sight and out of mind. However there are a lot of secondary functions that are really nice to tuck out of the way, so we tried to include it as a possible pattern with strong guidance around when it’s appropriate to use. Maybe we didn’t do a good enough job on that, and that’s one of the things you can expect us to keep doing with the spec going forward: making it clearer and easier to use.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Here's an example of where you can find a hamburger menu in Android 5.0 Lollipop within the Gmail app:</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/54f60d926da811a855df0cf4-895-499/hamburgermenuandroid.png" border="0" alt="HamburgerMenuAndroid"></p>
<p dir="ltr">Most people don't care either way, but others, like TechCrunch's Josh Constine, <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/24/before-the-hamburger-button-kills-you/">hate the hamburger menu</a>. He calls it a "poor mobile design choice," saying that it hides features off-screen for no real reason.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/android-lollipop-release-date-update-2015-2" >All the phones that can get Google's massive new Android update today</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/material-design-android-5-0-lollipop-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-android-owners-bragging-2014-4">Things That iPhone Users Say That Drive Android Users Crazy</a></p> Screenshothttp://www.businessinsider.com/how-a-tweet-turned-ryan-graves-into-a-billionaire-2015-3How a tweet turned Uber's first hire into a billionairehttp://www.businessinsider.com/how-a-tweet-turned-ryan-graves-into-a-billionaire-2015-3
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 14:43:21 -0500Maya Kosoff
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54f60b4a69bedd4663d23755-1200-924/ryan-graves-1.jpg" border="0" alt="ryan graves"></p><p>In January 2010, <a href="https://twitter.com/travisk/status/7422828552">Uber CEO Travis Kalanick tweeted</a>, "<span>Looking 4 entrepreneurial product mgr/biz-dev killer 4 a location based service.. pre-launch, BIG equity, big peeps involved--ANY TIPS??"</span></p>
<p>His car-hailing company, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-just-raised-12-billion-2014-12">most recently valued at $41 billion</a>, was less than a year old at the time.</p>
<p>A guy named Ryan Graves saw Kalanick's tweet and responded.</p>
<p><span>"heres a tip. email me :)," Graves </span><a href="https://twitter.com/ryangraves/status/7422940444">said on Twitter</a><span>. He included his email address too.</span></p>
<p><span>Back then, Graves was a normal guy whose </span><span>work experience included a </span><span>database administrator </span><span>position at </span>General Electric<span> and a stint in </span><span>business development </span><span>at Foursquare that he acquired </span><a href="http://www.dailyfinance.com/on/uber-billionaire-ryan-graves/">by working for them</a><span> for free after the company initially turned him down.</span></p>
<p>Five years later, as <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenhuet/2015/03/02/uber-billionaires-garrett-camp-ryan-graves/">Forbes' Ellen Huet pointed out</a>, this tweet would make a billionaire out of Graves.<span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></p>
<p>Kalanick presumably followed up with Graves, who became Uber's first hire. Graves was briefly Uber's CEO before Kalanick replaced him in late 2010. Graves stayed on as Uber's head of global operations, where he remains today.</p>
<p>"Ryan Graves’ first day was March 1st and he hit the ground running," Kalanick <a href="http://blog.uber.com/2010/12/22/ubers-founding/">said in a blog post detailing Uber's origins</a>. "From the day he got going, we spent about 15-20 hours a week working together going over product, driver on-boarding, pricing model, the whole nine. He learned the startup game fast and worked his ass off to build the Uber team and make the San Francisco launch and subsequent growth a huge success." </p>
<p>Kalanick, Graves, and Uber cofounder Garrett Camp <a href="http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/">all made Forbes' list of the world's billionaires</a> for the first time this year. Cofounders Kalanick and Camp have a larger stake in the company than Graves does, which explains their larger net worths ($5.3 billion and $5.3 billion, respectively, as opposed to Graves' $1.4 billion).</p>
<p>Uber <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-has-expanded-its-most-recent-round-of-funding-by-1-billion-2015-2">expanded its Series E round of funding</a> from <span>$1.2 billion </span><span>to $2.8 billion last month, bringing the total amount of funding raised by Uber to an astounding $5.9 billion.</span></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-has-expanded-its-most-recent-round-of-funding-by-1-billion-2015-2" >Uber gets another $1 billion from investors</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-a-tweet-turned-ryan-graves-into-a-billionaire-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nicholas-carlson-marissa-mayer-fun-facts-snl-2015-3">3 things you didn't know about Marissa Mayer</a></p> REUTERS/Beck Diefenbach http://www.businessinsider.com/minecraft-founder-got-an-offer-to-buy-his-home-2015-3The billionaire founder of Minecraft says he got an anonymous offer to buy his mansion for $80 million shortly after he got ithttp://www.businessinsider.com/minecraft-founder-got-an-offer-to-buy-his-home-2015-3
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 14:35:00 -0500Madeline Stone
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/5494615469bedd847de024dc-1200-924/minecraft-mansion.jpg" border="0" alt="minecraft mansion"></p><p>In December, Minecraft founder Markus Persson <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/minecraft-creator-buys-70-million-home-2014-12">reportedly outbid</a> Jay-Z and Beyonce for an amazing home in Beverly Hills.</p>
<p>He paid $70 million for the over-the-top, 23,000-square-foot home.</p>
<p>In an <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2015/03/03/minecraft-markus-persson-notch-interview-microsoft-sale/">interview with Forbes</a>, Persson said he received a mysterious offer just a few weeks later. </p>
<p>"S<span>omeone anonymously offered me $10 million more than I paid for it a couple weeks after I got it. I don’t know who it is. You could probably guess," Persson said. "At least I know now it was a good investment because it’s worth $10 million more than I paid."</span></p>
<p><span>Persson seems to be enjoying life in his swanky new pad. </span></p>
<p>"I threw a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-founder-of-minecraft-threw-an-epic-housewarming-party-2015-1">crazy party</a> with amazing guests," he told Forbes. "Then I kind of sat around in that house and played Infinifactory. So I guess there are elements of excess in my life now, but in general day-to-day stuff, I still do the same old wonderfully nerdy introvert stuff I did before."</p>
<p>There are some things about the house he doesn't love, however.</p>
<p>"One of the floors has a bunch of things I don’t like — like candy machines, [bottles of] Patrón and a gym," he <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2015/03/03/minecraft-markus-persson-notch-interview-microsoft-sale/">said</a>. "Come on. Look at me. Does it look like I use the gym?"</p>
<p>Persson tweeted a photo of himself next to the home's enormous candy wall.</p>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/thedarkninjas">@thedarkninjas</a> <a href="http://t.co/832C7abpRc">pic.twitter.com/832C7abpRc</a> </p>— Markus Persson (@notch) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/550059095018192896">December 30, 2014</a>
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<p class="embed-spacer"><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </strong></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-fabulous-life-of-notch-2015-1" >The Fabulous Life Of Notch, The Hard-Partying Founder Of Minecraft</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/minecraft-founder-got-an-offer-to-buy-his-home-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/70-million-mansion-minecraft-jay-z-beyonce-beverly-hills-2014-12">Here's Video Of That Bonkers $70 Million Mansion That The Minecraft Creator Bought, Outbidding Jay Z And Beyoncé</a></p> Courtesy of Rodeo Realtyhttp://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-cases-of-the-dress-2015-3No one is going to buy your white and gold or blue and black-themed producthttp://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-cases-of-the-dress-2015-3
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 14:32:40 -0500Myles Udland
<p> <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Remember "<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/white-and-gold-black-and-blue-dress-2015-2">The Dress</a>?"</span></p>
<p class="embed-spacer">Well, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00U354O18?tag=dealnewscom">now we have iPhone cases</a>, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-dress-iphone-case-2015-3">two of them</a>, so that you can share with your friends and the world which color you think — or thought — the dress was. </p>
<p class="embed-spacer"><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54f60384ecad04c57c38ff48-836-763/screen%20shot%202015-03-03%20at%201.50.59%20pm.png" border="0" alt="Screen Shot 2015 03 03 at 1.50.59 PM"></p>
<p class="embed-spacer">The glaring problem is that this item will be released on March 27, a full month after people were losing their minds over the dress. </p>
<p class="embed-spacer">And in a month, it seems unlikely that people are really going to care. Or at least, care enough to spend $16.99 to get two iPhone cases that will, in time, amount to little more than an ironic callback to an internet meme we all had some fun with for like three days. </p>
<p class="embed-spacer">As my colleague Caroline Moss said, people may have bought these things the night of — <span>like this man, </span><span></span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tattoo-of-the-dress-2015-3">who got a tattoo of the dress on his leg</a> — the way you might buy pizza after a long night of drinking. </p>
<p class="embed-spacer">But waiting a month to get the product that relates to an event? Well, then the event is over. </p>
<p class="embed-spacer">(<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/arizona-llama-chase-2015-2">Remember the llamas?</a>)</p>
<p class="embed-spacer">Now, as a number of media outlets found out, the traffic-based rewards from this story were very, very serious indeed. </p>
<p class="embed-spacer">BuzzFeed's <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/catesish/help-am-i-going-insane-its-definitely-blue#.dvygvMzgr">main post on the dress</a> has garnered more than 38 million views. </p>
<p class="embed-spacer">The Tumblr page that had the original dress photo <a href="http://staff.tumblr.com/post/112536327335/remember-last-thursday-when-a-single-slip-of">got more than 73 million views</a>. </p>
<p class="embed-spacer">Business Insider's post has <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/white-and-gold-black-and-blue-dress-2015-2">more than 4 million views</a>.</p>
<p class="embed-spacer">Creating a meaningful commercial opportunity from this internet sensation, however, is significantly more challenging. </p>
<p class="embed-spacer">Earlier on Tuesday, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-dress-iphone-case-2015-3">we put up a post noting that these cases were for sale</a>.</p>
<p class="embed-spacer">And the immediate reaction on Twitter was one of fatigue and disgust.</p>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/businessinsider">@businessinsider</a> NO. STOP. </p>— Brianna Ehley (@Briannaehley) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/572834456857411585">March 3, 2015</a>
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stop RT <a href="https://twitter.com/businessinsider">@businessinsider</a>: Now you can pre-order "the dress" as an iPhone case for $17 <a href="http://t.co/DskLhijabg">http://t.co/DskLhijabg</a> <a href="http://t.co/lLyfLnmips">pic.twitter.com/lLyfLnmips</a> </p>— Matt Johnston (@ByMattJ) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/572835087810727937">March 3, 2015</a>
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“<a href="https://twitter.com/businessinsider">@businessinsider</a>: Now you can pre-order "the dress" as an iPhone case for $17 <a href="http://t.co/llKtizP1Jc">http://t.co/llKtizP1Jc</a>” IN GODS NAME WHY </p>— Jenn (@jenntash) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/572835349883432960">March 3, 2015</a>
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<p class="embed-spacer">It seems more likely, then, that people trying to sell things that are white and gold or black and blue will end up like these guys, scrambling for the business opportunity that follows from a bland conversation between a few bored millennials. </p>
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<p class="embed-spacer"></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-cases-of-the-dress-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-headphones-tricks-2015-2">14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do</a></p> Amazon.comhttp://www.businessinsider.com/e-commerce-and-same-day-delivery-2014-9THE SAME-DAY DELIVERY REPORT: E-commerce giants are battling to own the 'last mile'http://www.businessinsider.com/e-commerce-and-same-day-delivery-2014-9
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 14:20:00 -0500Cooper Smith
<p class="p1"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/541c5dd3eab8ea2a11bea490-400-/bii-sameday-delivery-forecast-1-1.png" border="0" alt="bii sameday delivery forecast 1" width="400" style="float: right;"></p><p></p>
<p class="p1">Companies like Google, Amazon, eBay, and Uber&nbsp;are operating and expanding services that allow shoppers to order something online and have it that same day, without ever leaving home.</p>
<p class="p1">If they manage it, despite the expense and complexities involved in delivering over the "last mile," these companies will&nbsp;grow e-commerce's customer base (as well as its share of retail dollars), and siphon off one of offline retail's last real competitive advantages.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p1">In a <a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/same-day-delivery-is-gaining-traction-and-will-cause-in-store-sales-in-big-cities-to-decline-2014-9?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=E-SAMEDAY-2014-9-19&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">new report</a>, <a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/same-day-delivery-is-gaining-traction-and-will-cause-in-store-sales-in-big-cities-to-decline-2014-9?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=E-SAMEDAY-2014-9-19&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">BI Intelligence</a> takes an exhaustive look at the same-day delivery market, sizing the percentage of people who will purchase goods to be delivered the same-day this year. We uncover the demographics of same-day delivery customers, the markets where these services have the best chance of taking off, and assess how each of the many new same-day delivery entrants compares to the others. We also look at the technology that really could make getting a package delivered to your door hours after you order it a common phenomenon.</p>
<p class="p3"><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/same-day-delivery-is-gaining-traction-and-will-cause-in-store-sales-in-big-cities-to-decline-2014-9?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=E-SAMEDAY-2014-9-19&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');"><strong>Access The Full Market Forecast By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today &gt;&gt;</strong></a></p>
<p class="p3">Here are some of the key points from the report:&nbsp;</p>
<ul>
<li><strong><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/same-day-delivery-is-gaining-traction-and-will-cause-in-store-sales-in-big-cities-to-decline-2014-9?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=E-SAMEDAY-2014-9-19&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">USE:</a> </strong>BI Intelligence estimates that 2% of shoppers living in cities where same-day delivery is offered have used such services. In dollar terms, we estimate that roughly $100 million worth of merchandise will be delivered via same-day fulfillment this year in 20 US cities.</li>
<li><strong><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/same-day-delivery-is-gaining-traction-and-will-cause-in-store-sales-in-big-cities-to-decline-2014-9?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=E-SAMEDAY-2014-9-19&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">CONSUMER EXPECTATIONS:</a> </strong>Consumer interest in same-day delivery is already fairly high. Four in 10 US shoppers said they would use same-day delivery if they didn't have time to go to the store, and one in four shoppers said they would considering abandoning an online shopping cart if same-day delivery was not an option.&nbsp;</li>
<li><strong><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/same-day-delivery-is-gaining-traction-and-will-cause-in-store-sales-in-big-cities-to-decline-2014-9?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=E-SAMEDAY-2014-9-19&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">DEMOGRAPHICS:</a></strong> The most common same-day delivery shopper fits a very specific profile — millennial, highly likely to be male, urban-dwelling, and young. The products people want delivered same-day are also fairly niche.</li>
<li><strong><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/same-day-delivery-is-gaining-traction-and-will-cause-in-store-sales-in-big-cities-to-decline-2014-9?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=E-SAMEDAY-2014-9-19&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">BARRIERS:</a></strong> Despite all the competition in the same-day delivery market, it still won't be easy to get people to pay for these services.&nbsp;92% of consumers say they are willing to wait four days or longer for their e-commerce packages to arrive.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
<p><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 22.5px;">In full, the report:</span></span></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/same-day-delivery-is-gaining-traction-and-will-cause-in-store-sales-in-big-cities-to-decline-2014-9?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=E-SAMEDAY-2014-9-19&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">Estimates the market for same-day delivery from 2013-2018, including the percentage of people who will use these services and the total sales volume</a></li>
<li><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/same-day-delivery-is-gaining-traction-and-will-cause-in-store-sales-in-big-cities-to-decline-2014-9?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=E-SAMEDAY-2014-9-19&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">Looks at the most likely same-day delivery customers and the cities where these individuals are concentrated</a></li>
<li><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/same-day-delivery-is-gaining-traction-and-will-cause-in-store-sales-in-big-cities-to-decline-2014-9?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=E-SAMEDAY-2014-9-19&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">Unpacks the kinds of goods people are likeliest to order for same-day delivery</a></li>
<li><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/same-day-delivery-is-gaining-traction-and-will-cause-in-store-sales-in-big-cities-to-decline-2014-9?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=E-SAMEDAY-2014-9-19&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">Lays out how the different same-day delivery services stack up against each other in terms of prices, location, and selection</a></li>
<li><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/same-day-delivery-is-gaining-traction-and-will-cause-in-store-sales-in-big-cities-to-decline-2014-9?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=E-SAMEDAY-2014-9-19&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">Considers the barriers that could keep same-day delivery from ever becoming a mainstream preference among consumers</a></li>
<li><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/same-day-delivery-is-gaining-traction-and-will-cause-in-store-sales-in-big-cities-to-decline-2014-9?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=E-SAMEDAY-2014-9-19&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">Identifies the technology that could make same-day delivery cost-effective and commonplace</a></li>
</ul>
<p class="p3"><strong>To access the <a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/same-day-delivery-is-gaining-traction-and-will-cause-in-store-sales-in-big-cities-to-decline-2014-9?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=E-SAMEDAY-2014-9-19&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">Same-Day Delivery Market Forecast Report</a> and BI Intelligence's ongoing coverage on the future of retail, mobile, and e-commerce — including charts, data, and analysis — sign up of a free trial.&nbsp;</strong></p>
<p class="p3"><strong><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/541c5df56da811361bc495aa-1200-900/bii-sameday-delivery-product-1.png" border="0" alt="bii sameday delivery product" width="800"><br></strong></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/e-commerce-and-same-day-delivery-2014-9#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-headphones-tricks-2015-2">14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do</a></p> BI Intelligencehttp://www.businessinsider.com/john-doerr-testifies-in-ellen-pao-trial-2015-3John Doerr: Here's how we handled a workplace affair at Kleiner Perkinshttp://www.businessinsider.com/john-doerr-testifies-in-ellen-pao-trial-2015-3
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 14:07:37 -0500Sam Colt
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54e382d1ecad04e146aa4706-480-/Ellen-pao-john-doerr.jpg" border="0" alt="Ellen pao john doerr" width="480"></p><p></p>
<p>Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr took the stand in <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/Ellen-paos-discrimination-suit-against-kleiner-perkins-goes-to-court-2015-2">Ellen Pao's discrimination suit against the firm</a> on Tuesday, where he discussed Kleiner's handling of a workplace affair between Pao and another partner, Ajit Nazre.</p>
<p>Doerr, who was a mentor to Pao while she served as an associate partner and his chief of staff, said she told him about the affair with Nazre in June 2007.</p>
<p>In notes from that conversation, Pao allegedly called Nazre "weird," though she ultimately hoped that both she and Nazre could continue working at Kleiner.</p>
<p>Ray Lane, Nazre's mentor at Kleiner, was adamant that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ray-lane-you-cant-put-the-toothpaste-back-in-the-tube-2015-3">it would be difficult for the two of them to continue working there</a>.</p>
<p>Nazre was married during his affair with Pao, and Doerr said she wanted him to leave his wife.</p>
<p><span>"[Nazre] told me he had engaged in a consensual affair with Ellen," said Doerr. "That he loved her, that it was over, that they were beyond it. That she wanted him to leave his kids. He couldn't do that."</span></p>
<p><span>Doerr testified that he initially wanted to fire Nazre because of the affair, but relented when Lane wanted him to stay on at Kleiner.&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Pao also told Doerr she wanted Nazre to stay at Kleiner and that "</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">all of this was in the past."</span></p>
<p><span>In lieu of his termination, Kleiner docked Nazre's bonus.</span></p>
<p><span>"H</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">e did not earn his full bonus," said Doerr. "The&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">biggest punishment was that I told him I had lost confidence in his ability to be a leader at the firm."</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Despite Doerr's wanting Nazre to be fired, he didn't think there needed to be a record of Pao's complaint in his personnel file. He called the affair "a<span>&nbsp;serious lapse of judgement."</span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The year after Pao's complaint, Nazre came up for promotion to a senior partner role. Senior partners <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ellen-paos-attorney-just-showed-the-insane-amounts-vc-partners-get-paid-2015-2">make significantly more than their junior counterparts</a>. Nazre was promoted that year.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Doerr said he didn't remember how he voted on Nazre's promotion, but agreed with Pao attorney Alan Exelrod that Ray Lane was a "strong supporter" of Nazre becoming a senior partner, despite his affair.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Nazre was eventually fired from Kleiner Perkins after the firm investigated a claim of sexual harassment against Trae Vassallo, another former partner.</span></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ellen-paos-attorney-just-showed-the-insane-amounts-vc-partners-get-paid-2015-2" >Ellen Pao's attorney just revealed the insane amounts top partners at VC firms get paid</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/john-doerr-testifies-in-ellen-pao-trial-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/john-doerr-identify-tech-superstar-2014-12">Venture Capital Legend Reveals How To Spot The Next Tech Superstar</a></p> Marcio Jose Sanchez / AP Imageshttp://www.businessinsider.com/community-season-6-trailer-2015-3The first trailer for 'Community' on Yahoo is here and it mocks 'The Avengers'http://www.businessinsider.com/community-season-6-trailer-2015-3
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 14:04:44 -0500Kirsten Acuna
<p class="p1">The first trailer for the new season of "Community" is here, and it looks like the show may be returning to its stride.<span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The entire trailer plays out as a parody of Marvel's trailer for "The Avengers: Age of Ultron," referring to the series return as "Community: Age of Yahoo."</span></p>
<p class="p1">Yahoo picked up a sixth season of the comedy after NBC cancelled the show.</p>
<p class="p2">Season six of “Community” will premiere exclusively on Yahoo March 17.</p>
<div><div>
<iframe width="640" height="360" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="https://screen.yahoo.com/community/community-season-six-trailer-premiere-175500821.html?format=embed" allowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" webkitallowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true"></iframe>
</div></div><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/community-season-6-trailer-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-dress-iphone-case-2015-3Now you can buy ‘the dress’ as an iPhone casehttp://www.businessinsider.com/the-dress-iphone-case-2015-3
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 13:58:00 -0500Dave Smith
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/54f60327eab8eaa50ea51ec2-1200-1200/iphone-dress.jpg" border="0" alt="iphone dress">Remember <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/white-and-gold-black-and-blue-dress-2015-2">the dress that made everyone lose their minds</a> last week? </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Well, regardless if you’re Team Blue/Black or Team White/Gold, as long as you own an iPhone 6, you’ll soon be able to carry around this hot internet meme with you wherever you go.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Amazon is hosting pre-orders for iPhone cases that look like “the dress” — $17 gets you a two cases in both color schemes, for either your <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00U354O18?tag=dealnewscom">iPhone 6</a> or <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00U355L56?tag=dealnewscom">iPhone 6 Plus</a>. But,&nbsp;<a href="http://dealnews.com/The-Dress-iPhone-6-Case-2-Pack-preorders-for-10-free-shipping/1292188.html">DealNews says</a> using the coupon code "THEDRESS" during checkout will drop the price down to just $10.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"> Unfortunately, orders won’t ship until the end of March, so hopefully people still remember “the dress” by April.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The cases are made by <a href="http://stores.ebay.com/bastexwireless/?_fsub=558893519">Bastex Wireless</a>, which also sells thousands of other cases, couches, cables, batteries, and accessories for all kinds of smartphones.</span></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-see-the-dress-as-white-and-gold-and-black-and-blue-2015-2" >Here’s how to see this dress as both white and gold and black and blue</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-dress-iphone-case-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-6-apple-tricks-smartphone-2014-12">13 Things You Didn't Know Your iPhone 6 Could Do</a></p> Amazon/Bastex Wirelesshttp://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-ceo-explains-women-surge-2015-3All important meetings at Salesforce must include at least 30% women, says CEO (CRM)http://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-ceo-explains-women-surge-2015-3
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 13:31:03 -0500Julie Bort
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/54ee677becad04ed4e3b3560-1200-924/salesforcecom-marc-benioff.jpg" border="0" alt="Salesforce.com Marc Benioff"></p><p>Silicon Valley has a diversity problem. Most of the people that work in the tech industry are male (about 70%) and white (about 60%), <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/salesforcecom-diversity-charts-2014-7">according to</a> the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-diversity-problem-2014-5">big Valley firms </a>that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-diversity-report-2014-6">have released</a> <a href="http://yahoo.tumblr.com/post/89085398949/workforce-diversity-at-yahoo">diversity stats</a>.</p>
<p>The lack of women is even sadder when it comes to technical roles inside of tech companies — the people actually building the products and services these companies sell. Women are half the population, but make up only about 20% of these roles.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Salesforce, the biggest tech employer in the city of San Francisco, is taking unusual steps to change this inside his company, CEO Marc Benioff told Re/Code journalist Kara Swisher on stage at the<a href="http://lesbianswhotech.org/summit2015/"> Lesbians Who Tech Summit</a> in San Francisco on Friday.</p>
<p>"It's more than just women leaning in," he said, called the lack of women in tech a "crisis of prioritization."</p>
<p>Benioff has a program inside the company called "Women Surge" designed to identify executive-potential women employees and mandate that they get included on all the important stuff going on in the company.</p>
<p>"I'll go out and say to those managers, now I want you to invite all of your most high potential female executives into the meeting as well," Benioff said.</p>
<p>He's even got a target: Such meetings must include 30% to 50% women.</p>
<p>How well is this working for Salesforce? Hard to tell. According to its diversity numbers, Salesforce is on par with the rest of the industry: Its about 70% male overall, 80% male in its tech roles and 85% male in its leadership roles.</p>
<p>But hey, you have to start somewhere.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-cloud-consumption-problem-2015-3" >Satya Nadella is cleaning up Microsoft's 'dirty little secret'</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-ceo-explains-women-surge-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nicholas-carlson-marissa-mayer-fun-facts-snl-2015-3">3 things you didn't know about Marissa Mayer</a></p> Salesforce.comhttp://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-project-spartan-browser-video-2015-3Microsoft's new 'Project Spartan' web browser shown off in new video (MSFT)http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-project-spartan-browser-video-2015-3
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 13:22:50 -0500Steven Tweedie
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54f5f8eaeab8eaf674a51ec2-1200-600/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-windows-10-event-7.jpg" border="0" alt="Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Windows 10 event"></p><p>Microsoft gave us a quick glimpse at its next web browser&nbsp;<span>—</span>&nbsp;codenamed Project Spartan&nbsp;<span>—</span>&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-spartan-web-browser-for-windows-10-2015-1">back in January</a>, but a new video shows some of the web browser's newest features in action.</p>
<p>The folks over at WinBeta have managed to get their hands on an early copy of Project Spartan, <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/3/8139795/windows-10-project-spartan-video-leak">according to The Verge</a>, and their video walkthrough demonstrates how the browser will see close integration with Cortana, Microsoft's own Siri-like virtual assistant.</p>
<p>In an effort to make browsing the web more efficient, Cortana will be able to glean important information from websites like store hours, phone numbers, and addresses. Cortana lets you know if she's been able to pull any helpful information by jumping up and down in your search bar. Click on Cortana's circular symbol, and a side bar is brought up that presents what she found in a tidy format.</p>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54f5f54deab8ea8f66a51ec5-1200-632/screen shot 2015-03-03 at 12.35.06 pm.png" border="0" alt="Microsoft Project Spartan web browser Windows 10"></p>
<p>Cortana can also easily pull up directions without even leaving the current web page, which could end up being handy when you're in a rush and don't want to head over to Google.</p>
<p>Similar to Apple's own "define" tool in OS X Yosemite, Cortana also features an "ask Cortana" option that will define or look up more information on a highlighted word.</p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/54f5f63e69bedda229d23755-1200-632/screen shot 2015-03-03 at 12.57.43 pm.png" border="0" alt="Microsoft Project Spartan web browser Windows 10"></p>
<p>Want to quickly check out the weather? Just type "weather" into the browser's search bar and Cortana will bring it up instantly.</p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/54f5f7746da811f206df0cf2-1200-667/screen shot 2015-03-03 at 1.02.57 pm.png" border="0" alt="Microsoft Project Spartan web browser Windows 10"></p>
<p>So when will you be able to try Project Spartan out for yourself?</p>
<p>Microsoft has promised Project Spartan will be included in Windows 10, which could launch as early as June 2015. If you have a Microsoft account, however, Microsoft recently announced that Project Spartan will be included in the upcoming Windows 10 preview that is available later this month.</p>
<p><iframe width="800" height="450" frameborder="0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Fj9QAMVmdbM"></iframe></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/creative-snapchat-story-resume-2015-3" >This guy turned his resume into a hilarious Snapchat Story to apply for a job</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-project-spartan-browser-video-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> APhttp://www.businessinsider.com/markwayne-mullin-god-bless-isreal-2015-3Oklahoma Congressman: 'God bless Isreal'http://www.businessinsider.com/markwayne-mullin-god-bless-isreal-2015-3
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 13:10:00 -0500Leslie Larson
<p>Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma) had a rather unique reaction to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on Tuesday.</p>
<p>After Netanyahu's address was over, Mullin <a href="https://twitter.com/RepMullin/status/572802683750514689">tweeted a misspelled message of support</a>.</p>
<p>"God bless Isreal," the tweet said.</p>
<p>A spokesperson for Mullin's office told Business Insider a staff member posted the tweet.</p>
<p>"It’s clearly a mistake but it will be corrected," they said.</p>
<p>The tweet stayed up for more than an hour and was deleted shortly after Business Insider reached out to the Congressman.</p>
<p>View the original tweet below:</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54f5f451ecad040b5a38ff48-800-/israel%20tweet.png" border="0" alt="israel tweet" width="800"></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/markwayne-mullin-god-bless-isreal-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-facts-putin-world-controversy-2015-1">11 Facts That Show How Different Russia Is From The Rest Of The World</a></p> Rep. Markwayne Mullin's (R-Oklahoma) tweet.http://www.businessinsider.com/nbc-news-changes-2015-3Here's what's happening in the NBC News shake-uphttp://www.businessinsider.com/nbc-news-changes-2015-3
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 13:07:00 -0500Henry Blodget
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54f5f7e1eab8ea6a6ea51ec9-600-/brian-williams-46.jpg" border="0" alt="Brian Williams" width="600"></p><p>Ever since NBC News anchor Brian Williams was suspended for embellishing war stories, everyone has been watching NBC News to see what other changes might follow.</p>
<p>Specifically, people have wondered whether there might be a leadership shake-up.</p>
<p>Now we have our answer.</p>
<p>(Yes.)</p>
<p>As <a href="http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/nbc-news-shakeup-1201444723/">Cynthia Littleton of Variety reported this morning</a>, NBC News is in talks with Andrew Lack, a former CBS and Bloomberg Television executive, to join the company as chairman of the NBC News group. Lack would replace Patricia Fili-Krushel, the current chairman of the news group, who would be given another job within the company.</p>
<p>If Lack does take over NBC News, the fate of Deborah Turness, the president of NBC News and a second executive in the crosshairs since the Brian Williams imbroglio, would be in Lack's hands.</p>
<p>The agreement with Lack has not yet been consummated, sources say. One source estimates that an agreement might be reached within days. Another believes the deal is likely to get done.</p>
<p>So what happened?</p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54f5f8516bb3f7c945d23755-340-255/andrew-lack-2.jpg" border="0" alt="andrew lack">According to a source familiar with the situation, after Brian Williams' departure, Fili-Krushel and her boss, the CEO of NBC Universal, Stephen B. Burke, agreed that the news division needed an experienced, well-respected journalist to step in and calm the frustration and division within the newsroom.</p>
<p>Fili-Krushel does not have a deep journalism background, and much of the criticism and second-guessing in recent weeks has focused on this. It's not clear who initiated the decision, but Fili-Krushel, who is said to be one of Steve Burke's closest advisers, agreed with the logic of the move and agreed to step aside.</p>
<p>As the president of NBC News, Turness will report to Lack. Turness joined NBC News in 2013 and has had a controversial tenure at the top. If and when Lack takes over the helm of the NBC News group, Lack will presumably make a decision about her future.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nbc-news-changes-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/brian-williams-stars-stripes-interview-nbc-iraq-helicopter-2015-2">Here's the interview with 'Stars and Stripes' that got Brian Williams into so much trouble</a></p> REUTERS/Phil McCartenhttp://www.businessinsider.com/shazam-charts-on-all-about-that-bass-by-meghan-trainor-2015-3How Shazam spotted a No. 1 Billboard song before it was even a hithttp://www.businessinsider.com/shazam-charts-on-all-about-that-bass-by-meghan-trainor-2015-3
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 13:04:08 -0500James Cook
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/54f5ebbf6da811d065df0cf2-1200-924/meghan-trainor-2.jpg" border="0" alt="Meghan Trainor"></p><p>Remember "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PCkvCPvDXk">All About That Bass</a>"? The single, by Meghan Trainor, topped the Billboard Hot 100 and was heard around the world.</p>
<p>But it wasn't radio play that made "All About That Bass" famous. We can use charts from music app Shazam and others to examine exactly how it went viral — and to see how Shazam can predict which songs are going to be hits before they're even at the top of the charts.</p>
<p>Here's a chart that Shazam has been handing out at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. It shows the UK Shazam searches, sales, and radio play for "All About That Bass":</p>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54f5e7d169bedd0d07d23756-800-413/unnamed__11_.jpg" border="0" alt="Shazam All About That Bass chart"></p>
<p>Shazam is an app that people can use to identify music they hear. Fire up the app, hit the Shazam icon, and it records what you're hearing and tells you what song is playing.</p>
<p>People heard "All About That Bass," didn't recognize it, and used Shazam to find out what it was. That preceded the sales peak. And radio play was way behind — it took months for stations to start playing the song on rotation.</p>
<p><strong>Here's another chart that shows the US reaction to "All About That Bass":</strong></p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/54f5ea4a6bb3f7421fd2375a-800-578/chart2-13.png" border="0" alt="All About That Bass Spotify and Shazam chart"></p>
<p>Again, Shazam picked up "All About That Bass" first. But this chart shows Spotify plays — and they're the third peak, after sales.</p>
<p>Shazam also measures where searches are coming from. Here's a chart that shows how it spread in the UK:</p>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54f5eb1eecad045a4538ff48-800-318/unnamed (2)-4.jpg" border="0" alt="Shazam All About That Bass regional chart UK"></p>
<p>So if you want to know what the next song is, Shazam's data can tell you. Thankfully, the data isn't private. <a href="http://www.shazam.com/charts/us_top_100">Shazam publishes it on its website</a>:</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54f5eb8feab8eae254a51ec2-800-435/screen shot 2015-03-03 at 18.11.19.png" border="0" alt="Shazam music chart"></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mobile-world-congress-2015" >More coverage of Mobile World Congress 2015</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/shazam-charts-on-all-about-that-bass-by-meghan-trainor-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> Jason Merritt/Getty Imageshttp://www.businessinsider.com/box-buys-subspace-2015-3Box just made its first acquisition since going public, and the target is health care and financial services (BOX)http://www.businessinsider.com/box-buys-subspace-2015-3
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 12:34:56 -0500Matt Weinberger
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54c25cabecad04f72b3f9717-600-/box-ceo-aaron-levie-8.jpg" border="0" alt="Box CEO Aaron Levie" width="600"></p><p>Cloud storage sync-and-share vendor Box has made its first acquisition since going public. It's buying Subspace, a small data security startup.</p>
<p>The buy will help Box as it tries to reach bigger companies in industries where security is particularly important, like health care and financial services. Last week, Box rolled out a new package of services specifically for the financial services industry.</p>
<p>Subspace's product lets IT administrators set permissions on who can access apps, services, and data across devices. This is a hard challenge when your phone, tablet, refrigerator, Tesla, and Oculus Rift will all be able to access the network from different places at different times from across the world — not just your own office.&nbsp;</p>
<p>"In these situations, no matter where data travels, and what device it ends up on, enterprises need to be able to control the access permissions and security around it," writes Box co-founder and CEO Aaron Levie in the <a href="%20In%20these%20situations,%20no%20matter%20where%20data%20travels,%20and%20what%20device%20it%20ends%20up%20on,%20enterprises%20need%20to%20be%20able%20to%20control%20the%20access%20permissions%20and%20security%20around%20it.">official blog post</a>.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Where the seven-person Subspace fits in, Levie writes, is with containerized browser technology. That's a fancy way of saying that if somebody outside of your own Box installation clicks a link to a file, for example a PDF, it can load in a secure, encrypted browser that makes sure nobody is seeing it other than the person who needs to. This is especially a good idea for customers in the health industry, where the HIPAA standard means you're not supposed to access data from an unencrypted device. A secure browser that automatically loads can meet those requirements without requiring a user to do anything special.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Box has invested in so-called information rights management significantly in the last year, making sure that data on its platform can be securely shared with tools like watermarking, audit logs, and even a partnership with Amazon Web Services for key storage.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/box-buys-subspace-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/right-way-load-dishwasher-clean-dishes-2015-2">You've been loading your dishwasher all wrong</a></p> Boxhttp://www.businessinsider.com/protestors-try-to-levitate-vice-headquarters-into-the-river-2015-3A group of protestors will try to levitate Vice's Brooklyn headquarters into the East River todayhttp://www.businessinsider.com/protestors-try-to-levitate-vice-headquarters-into-the-river-2015-3
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 12:30:58 -0500Madeline Stone
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54f5e8b4ecad04153a38ff4a-1200-924/vice-williamsburg-2.jpg" border="0" alt="vice williamsburg"></p><p>A Brooklyn-based musical collective called Talibam! will pay a visit to the Williamsburg headquarters of Vice Media today.</p>
<p>According to a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1410980522532551/permalink/1420411688256101/">Facebook page dedicated to the event</a>, the group will apparently be attempting to levitate Vice's building into the East River, after which the "spirits of the Displaced and dormant creative energies underneath the foundation of Vice's Media HQ will be unleashed" and "a creative re-flowering of the Williamsburg Waterfront Communities will regenerate." </p>
<p>The event's organizer, Matt Mottel, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1410980522532551/permalink/1420411688256101/">told Brokelyn</a> that the exorcism-like event is not a protest but "an act of public assembly, <span>using levitation as the mechanism to channel public awareness to a situation that has displaced and effected many.</span>" </p>
<p>Vice's plans to move into a complex of warehouses along the East River have upset some in the Williamsburg creative community. Two indie music clubs — Death by Audio and Glasslands — recently moved out to make room for the media company. Vice has said they played no role in their displacement. </p>
<p>"It was the landlord’s decision to not renew their leases," Hosi Simon, general manager at Vice, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/arts/music/vice-media-vs-brooklyn-indie-music-clubs.html?_r=0">told the New York Times</a>. "And it was the tenants’ decision to take buyouts."</p>
<p>With their levitation ceremony today, Talibam! hopes to create "<span>an open dialog between Vice, the directly displaced live/work communities in the Kent ave building, the long term Latino communities being displaced via the 2005 Williamsburg Rezoning and the greater New York city artistic community that Vice has cannibalized with their take over of that building." </span> </p>
<p>The group will have a rehearsal before beginning the levitation at 3:35 this afternoon.</p>
<div><div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>
<a href="https://twitter.com/questlove">@questlove</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/TVTye">@TVTye</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/LennyKravitz">@LennyKravitz</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/billyjoel">@billyjoel</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/lucasbros">@lucasbros</a> join us today ! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/levitatevice?src=hash">#levitatevice</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/jimmyfallon">@jimmyfallon</a> <a href="http://t.co/YxCppRJj6s">pic.twitter.com/YxCppRJj6s</a> </p>— matt mottel (@mmottel) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/572784733589012480">March 3, 2015</a>
</blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></div>
<p class="embed-spacer"></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-wild-life-of-vice-ceo-shane-smith-2015-2" >The wild and crazy life of Shane Smith, cofounder and CEO of Vice</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/protestors-try-to-levitate-vice-headquarters-into-the-river-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-headphones-tricks-2015-2">14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do</a></p> awiseman / Flickrhttp://www.businessinsider.com/robert-downey-jr-wrote-the-htc-one-m9-tv-ad-script-2015-3Robert Downey Jr. doesn't just star in HTC's latest TV ad — he wrote the scripthttp://www.businessinsider.com/robert-downey-jr-wrote-the-htc-one-m9-tv-ad-script-2015-3
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 12:23:00 -0500Lara O'Reilly
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/53ce72bb69bedd215041e5ff-1094-821/robert-downey-jr-7.jpg" border="0" alt="Robert Downey Jr."></p><p>HTC has gone for a more emotional than usual approach with the TV ad for<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/htc-one-m9-announced-2015-3"> its latest flagship smartphone, the One M9</a> (you can watch it in full below.)</p>
<p>It is narrated by long-term brand ambassador Robert Downey Jr. The script aims to remind the viewer that we're "all one."</p>
<p>But Downey Jr. doesn't just read the script. He helped write it.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Idris Mootee, HTC's recently appointed chief marketing officer, spoke with Business Insider at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona about how the ad came about.</p>
<p>He told us: "I called him up and I said I want you to be our storyteller. He said 'OK, I'll do that.' And he helped write [some of the script.] I changed it, he changed it, [his wife] Susan Downey changed it. It went back and forth like this."</p>
<p>Then it came to recording the voiceover. Mootee admits some of his colleagues were a little nervous about the idea: HTC has a huge contract with Robert Downey Jr. and the new marketing boss didn't even want him on screen in the ad. But Mootee said eschewing the Hollywood actor and instead featuring emotive connections between lots of (unknown) people was the best way to tell HTC's brand story.</p>
<p>Mootee continued: "It took just one day in the studio. Afterward he called Susan and said 'it's beautiful, like a poem'. It only took three takes, 15 minutes, he loved it so much [and thinks] this is the best way to tell our story. He really believed in that and represents us."</p>
<p>Robert Downey Jr.: From Iron Man to Mad Man.</p>
<h3>Here's the TV ad, which was unveiled at the HTC One M9 launch event in Barcelona on Sunday. The ad starts at around 0:05.</h3>
<p><iframe width="850" height="450" frameborder="0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BWhM_oHr558"></iframe></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mobile-world-congress-2015" >More coverage of Mobile World Congress 2015</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/robert-downey-jr-wrote-the-htc-one-m9-tv-ad-script-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> Kevin Winter/Getty Imageshttp://www.businessinsider.com/uav-or-commercial-drone-market-forecast-2015-2Commercial drones are already a reality, with huge impacts for many industrieshttp://www.businessinsider.com/uav-or-commercial-drone-market-forecast-2015-2
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 12:13:00 -0500Marcelo Ballve
<p><strong><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54ad8f0269bedd7078ba7175-600-/biidronemarket2014.png" border="0" alt="BII_DroneMarket2014" width="600" style="float: right;"></strong>The fast-growing global drone industry has not sat back waiting for government policy to be hammered out before pouring investment and effort into opening up this all-new hardware and computing market.&nbsp;</p>
<p>A growing ecosystem of drone software and hardware vendors is already catering to a long list of clients in agriculture, land management, energy, and construction. Many of the vendors are smallish private companies and startups — although large defense-focused companies and industrial conglomerates are beginning to invest in drone technology, too.&nbsp;</p>
<p><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/aerial-drones-market-forecasts-regulatory-barriers-and-leading-commercial-applications-2015-1?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=IMDME-DRONES-2015-2-7&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">In the most recent report from BI Intelligence</a>, we take a deep dive into the various levels of the growing global industry for commercial drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). This 32-page report provides forecasts for the business opportunity in commercial drone technology, looks at advances and persistent barriers, highlights the top business-to-business markets in terms of applications and end users, and provides an exclusive list of dozens of notable companies already active in the space. Finally, it digs into the current state of US regulation of commercial drones, recently upended by the issuing of the Federal Aviation Administration's draft rules for commercial drone flights. Few people know that many companies are already authorized to fly small drones commercially under a US government "exemption" program.&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Here are some of the main takeaways from the report:&nbsp;</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><strong><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/aerial-drones-market-forecasts-regulatory-barriers-and-leading-commercial-applications-2015-1?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=IMDME-DRONES-2015-2-7&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">The global commercial drone market will take shape around applications in a handful of industries</a>:&nbsp;</strong>agriculture, energy, utilities, mining, construction, real estate, news media, and film production.&nbsp;</li>
<li><strong><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/aerial-drones-market-forecasts-regulatory-barriers-and-leading-commercial-applications-2015-1?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=IMDME-DRONES-2015-2-7&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">Most growth in the drone industry is on the commercial/civilian side, as the shift away from the military market gains momentum</a>.&nbsp;</strong>The market for commercial/civilian drones will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of&nbsp;19% between 2015 and 2020, compared with 5% growth on the military side.&nbsp;</li>
<li><strong><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/aerial-drones-market-forecasts-regulatory-barriers-and-leading-commercial-applications-2015-1?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=IMDME-DRONES-2015-2-7&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">E-commerce and package delivery will&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;be an early focus of the drone industry</a>.</strong>&nbsp;</li>
<li><strong><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/aerial-drones-market-forecasts-regulatory-barriers-and-leading-commercial-applications-2015-1?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=IMDME-DRONES-2015-2-7&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">Legacy drone manufacturers focused mostly on military clients do not have a natural advantage in the fast-evolving civilian drone market</a>.&nbsp;</strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/aerial-drones-market-forecasts-regulatory-barriers-and-leading-commercial-applications-2015-1?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=IMDME-DRONES-2015-2-7&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">Proposed US regulation would effectively end the ban on commercial drone flights and would allow low-altitude flights of small drones within view of a ground-based pilot</a>.&nbsp;</strong>The rules are unlikely to be finalized before early 2017. Some believe it will happen earlier. But we believe it <em>most</em> likely that widespread though heavily restricted commercial UAV flights will become routine sometime that year.&nbsp;</li>
<li><strong><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/aerial-drones-market-forecasts-regulatory-barriers-and-leading-commercial-applications-2015-1?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=IMDME-DRONES-2015-2-7&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">Technology barriers are at once a roadblock and a huge business opportunity</a>.</strong>&nbsp;</li>
<li><strong><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54ef94316da8113651d8fa8b-615-461/djiphantom2-1.jpg" border="0" alt="DJIPhantom2" width="300" style="float: right;"><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/aerial-drones-market-forecasts-regulatory-barriers-and-leading-commercial-applications-2015-1?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=IMDME-DRONES-2015-2-7&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">Many of the notable early commercial UAV manufacturers are emerging outside of the US market</a></strong>: These include Switzerland-based senseFly (owned by France-based Parrot), Canadian firm Aeryon, publicly traded Swedish firm CybAero, Shenzhen, China-based DJI, and Korea-based Gryphon.&nbsp;</li>
<li><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/aerial-drones-market-forecasts-regulatory-barriers-and-leading-commercial-applications-2015-1?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=IMDME-DRONES-2015-2-7&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');"><strong>The commercial-drone industry is still young but has begun to see some consolidation and major investments from large industrial conglomerates, chip companies, and defense contractors</strong></a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
<p>In full, the report:&nbsp;</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/aerial-drones-market-forecasts-regulatory-barriers-and-leading-commercial-applications-2015-1?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=IMDME-DRONES-2015-2-7&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">Contains two detailed tables listing all the US companies already authorized to fly drones commercially, the brand/model of UAVs they'll use, and the applications they're supporting</a></li>
<li><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/aerial-drones-market-forecasts-regulatory-barriers-and-leading-commercial-applications-2015-1?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=IMDME-DRONES-2015-2-7&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">Details the implications of the FAA's new proposed rules for commercial drones</a></li>
<li><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/aerial-drones-market-forecasts-regulatory-barriers-and-leading-commercial-applications-2015-1?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=IMDME-DRONES-2015-2-7&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">Explores the top applications for commercial drones and why they have emerged as niches friendly to UAV technology</a></li>
<li><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/aerial-drones-market-forecasts-regulatory-barriers-and-leading-commercial-applications-2015-1?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=IMDME-DRONES-2015-2-7&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">Lists the high-level attributes of UAV systems and hardware, and why there are certain obstacles that remain difficult</a></li>
<li><a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/aerial-drones-market-forecasts-regulatory-barriers-and-leading-commercial-applications-2015-1?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=IMDME-DRONES-2015-2-7&amp;utm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" onclick="this.href = this.href + '-' + window.location.search.substr(1).replace(/\&amp;|\=/g, '-');">Contains charts on commercial-drone market size, FAA exemptions, and direct economic impact</a></li>
</ul>
<p>&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/uav-or-commercial-drone-market-forecast-2015-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> BI Intelligencehttp://www.businessinsider.com/luxe-series-a-funding-2015-3A startup just raised $20 million to fix the worst thing about city drivinghttp://www.businessinsider.com/luxe-series-a-funding-2015-3
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 12:00:00 -0500Maya Kosoff
<p dir="ltr"><span><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54f5bdd7eab8ea2967a51ec5-1200-924/luxe-valet-4.jpg" border="0" alt="luxe valet">On-demand valet parking app Luxe has raised a $20 million Series A round of funding, the company announced Tuesday.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>The new round of funding, which supplements the $5.5 million seed round Luxe raised in October, was led by investors Redpoint Ventures and Venrock. <span>Ryan Sarver of Redpoint and Brian Ascher of Venrock will join Luxe’s Board of Directors.&nbsp;</span></span></p>
<p>Luxe co-founder and CEO Curtis Lee first got the idea for his valet parking app while he was running late for a dinner reservation looking for a parking spot in San Francisco — a city notorious for its lack of parking.</p>
<p>Lee and his then-girlfriend (now-wife) circled the block for half an hour and almost missed their reservation. Lee was so angry,&nbsp;he started sketching out early ideas for the company right there at the restaurant.</p>
<p>Here's how Luxe works.</p>
<p>Before you leave your house, you plug in the address you're going to. The app tracks you as you make your way to your destination, and about 10 minutes before you get there, it matches you with a Luxe valet attendant.</p>
<p>Dressed in a bright blue jacket, your attendant meets you at your destination, hops into your car, and asks when you'll need it back and if you want them to run your car through a car wash or to fill your tank up with gas. Then they take your car to one of several lots in the city that Luxe has struck deals with.</p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54f5bdb56da811234ddf0cf2-720-540/luxe-valet-3.jpg" border="0" alt="luxe valet"></p>
<p>Ten minutes before you're ready to leave, you use the app to request the valet to bring your car wherever you are. The most surprising thing about the app is that it costs $5 an hour, or $15 a day. Parking in urban areas is typically much more expensive.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>The Series A funding will be used to expand Luxe's services, which were previously available only in Los Angeles and San Francisco, to new cities including Chicago, Boston, and Seattle by April, Lee said. </span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>In the coming weeks, Luxe will start recruiting new valets and opening private beta access for users in those cities.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span><span>Lee also says Luxe has seen 90% month-over-month customer growth and 97% transactional growth since Luxe's launch in San Francisco and Los Angeles in October. According to Luxe, the average customer uses the service twice a week.</span></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Along with the new infusion of money, Luxe also announced Tuesday it will be launching an Android app.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">“The fact is, 90% of Americans have to drive to work or to daily appointments like visiting the doctor, and in major metropolitan areas parking costs have continued to rise as inventory in parking garages is reduced," <span>Lee explained. "</span>Luxe’s model, where we bring a breakthrough business model together with the latest mobile technology creates efficiencies and cost savings for consumers.”</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/valet-parking-app-luxe-2014-10" >This New App Lets You Valet Park Your Car In San Francisco For $15 A Day</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/luxe-series-a-funding-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-star-10-second-songs-fame-anthony-vincent-2015-3">Here's the YouTube star taking over the internet 10 seconds at a time</a></p> Luxe Valethttp://www.businessinsider.com/k-cup-inventor-john-sylvans-regret-2015-3The Keurig K-Cup's inventor says that he feels bad that he made it — here's whyhttp://www.businessinsider.com/k-cup-inventor-john-sylvans-regret-2015-3
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 11:51:00 -0500Drake Baer
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54f4e7c269bedd5427150757-600-/k-cups.jpg" border="0" alt="k cups" width="600" style="float: right;"></p><p>Keurig Green Mountain made <a href="http://www.keuriggreenmountain.com/~/media/Files/PDF/Media%20Library/Fact%20Sheets/Keurig%20Green%20Mountain_FactSheet_02_2015.ashx" target="_blank">$4.7 billion</a> in revenue last year.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Much of that money <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/03/the-abominable-k-cup-coffee-pod-environment-problem/386501/?utm_source=nextdraft&amp;utm_medium=email" target="_blank">came thanks to K-Cups</a>, the coffee-in-a-pod system invented by cofounder John Sylvan.&nbsp;</p>
<p><span>The product is everywhere.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span>And its waste is, too, thanks to the fact that the cups are&nbsp;<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/03/the-abominable-k-cup-coffee-pod-environment-problem/386501/">almost impossible to recycle</a>.</span></p>
<p><span><span>"I feel bad sometimes that I ever [invented the K-Cup],"&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/03/the-abominable-k-cup-coffee-pod-environment-problem/386501/?utm_source=nextdraft&amp;utm_medium=email" target="_blank">Sylvan said.</a><span>&nbsp;</span></span></p>
<p><span>His creation is both a blessing and a curse.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span><span>"[Coffee pods are] the poster-child dilemma of the American economy,"&nbsp;</span><span></span><span>beverage consultant James Ewell&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/waste-the-dark-side-of-the-new-coffee-craze/Content?oid=3687220&amp;showFullText=true" target="_blank">said in an interview</a><span>. "People want convenience, even if it's not sustainable."</span></span></p>
<p>Sylvan knew he had a hit on his hands when he <a href="http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2011/08/07/the_inside_story_of_keurigs_rise_to_a_billion_dollar_coffee_empire/" target="_blank">was figuring out</a> the pod mechanism back in the '90s.</p>
<p>"It's like a cigarette for coffee, a single-serve delivery mechanism for an addictive substance,"&nbsp;<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/03/the-abominable-k-cup-coffee-pod-environment-problem/386501/" target="_blank">he tells the Atlantic.</a>&nbsp;<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But Syvlan, who <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/03/the-abominable-k-cup-coffee-pod-environment-problem/386501/?utm_source=nextdraft&amp;utm_medium=email" target="_blank">sold his stake </a>in the company for $50,000 back in 1997, doesn't own the machine.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"I don't have one," </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"></span><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/03/the-abominable-k-cup-coffee-pod-environment-problem/386501/" target="_blank">he says.</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> "They're kind of expensive to use ... plus it’s not like drip coffee is tough to make."</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Yet the mix of ease and addictiveness has made Keurig and its peers massively — and quickly — successful:</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">• &nbsp;In 2008 <a href="http://qz.com/193138/the-worlds-growing-love-affair-with-the-most-wasteful-form-of-coffee-there-is/" target="_blank">only 1.8&nbsp;million coffee pod machines</a> were sold in the US. In 2013 11.6 million were sold.<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">• A <a href="http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/waste-the-dark-side-of-the-new-coffee-craze/Content?oid=3687220" target="_blank">2013 poll</a> found that 1 in 3 Americans have a single-serve coffeemaker either at home or at work.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span>•&nbsp;</span><span>If all the K-cups that were sold in 2014 were laid end-to-end, the Atlantic&nbsp;</span><span></span><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/03/the-abominable-k-cup-coffee-pod-environment-problem/386501/?utm_source=nextdraft&amp;utm_medium=email" target="_blank">reports</a><span>, it would be enough to circle the Earth more than 10 times.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Today, Sylvan's work is very much environmental — <a href="http://www.zonbak.com/about/history.html" target="_blank">he runs ZonBak</a>, a solar company that claims to make the most cost-efficient solar panel in the world.&nbsp;</span></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-look-smart-2015-2" >9 science-backed tricks for appearing smarter than you are</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/k-cup-inventor-john-sylvans-regret-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/beauty-standards-family-values-china-2015-2">What the Chinese saying 'The ugly wife is a treasure at home' actually means</a></p> patrickgense / flickrhttp://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-cloud-consumption-problem-2015-3Satya Nadella is cleaning up Microsoft's 'dirty little secret' (MSFT)http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-cloud-consumption-problem-2015-3
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 11:47:00 -0500Julie Bort
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54f4fe516bb3f75878ff4a02-887-665/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-46.jpg" border="0" alt="Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella"></p><p>The scariest new word on the lips of Microsoft's sales managers these days is "consumption," multiple sources have told Business Insider.</p>
<p>Consumption, also known as "usage," refers to how much cloud computing a customer is actually consuming.</p>
<p>And there is a disconnect between how many of Microsoft's biggest enterprise customers have access to Microsoft's cloud as part of a larger contract, and how many of them are actually using it.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The disconnect between how many companies have access to its cloud services and how many are really using it is causing all sorts of problems internally, sources have told us. Specifically, we are hearing:</span></p>
<ul>
<li>Microsoft has been structuring deals that give away access to Azure, its cloud competitor to Amazon Web Services, for little to no extra cost to some customers who have no plans to use it. It has been counting some revenue from those deals for its cloud, but if they don't actually use the cloud, that revenue won't continue. Ditto for Office 365, its cloud-based email and productivity suite (although we are hearing that Office 365 is really starting to take off).</li>
<li>Microsoft is pressuring its sales force to get their customers who have these free "cloud credits" to actually use the cloud. It has changed its compensation plans for many sales teams giving them "consumption" goals.</li>
<li>We've heard that some sales people are quitting and/or are being told that their bonus is at risk over these consumption numbers. Receiving no bonus is deadly to a sales person, where a career depends on being a top seller.</li>
<li>Sales units are having all sorts of meetings to come up with plans to raise their consumption metrics.</li>
</ul>
<p><span>When we asked Microsoft for comment on this story, the company characterized cloud usage as "strong," and told us, "We are seeing strong usage of Microsoft Cloud services by businesses of all sizes. Over 60% of all Azure customers use at least one premium service, like media streaming, and over 80% of Office 365 enterprise customers have two or more workloads."</span></p>
<h2>The rush to the cloud</h2>
<p>To understand the sales people's panic over these new consumption metrics, it's helpful to have some context.</p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54650fa9eab8eaca45bb0842-682-511/google-cloud-napkin-1.jpg" border="0" alt="google cloud napkin">In the cloud world, companies only pay for the actual resources they use, like minutes of computing time, bytes of storage, usage of add-on apps and services, and so on.</p>
<p>Customers love this and are ditching traditional software and computers at a rapid rate so they can rent their tech via cloud computing.</p>
<p>There's a rush at every major tech vendor to sign up customers for their own cloud offerings before their competitors nab them. They are trying to nab their share of a market that will grow — conservatively — from $56.6 billion in 2014 to more than $127 billion in 2018, <a href="http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS25219014">according to market research firm IDC.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-cloud-business-the-good-the-bad-the-ugly-2014-11">As we previously reported</a>, Microsoft has spent the past few years trying to coax its huge bevy of enterprise customers to try its cloud products using a tried-and-true plan: Give them free credits to its cloud, with the idea they'll like it so much they'll start paying for real once the free credits are up (and hopefully, keep paying forever).</p>
<p>But it doesn't just give them free credits.&nbsp;<span>"A customer has to pay for anything that's on the EA." (That's "Enterprise Agreement," a licensing contract that almost all big Microsoft customers have.) &nbsp;"There's no sort of like, hey here's a free product," a source close to Microsoft told us.</span></p>
<p>Instead, Microsoft offers big discounts on the software part of the contract — say, Windows licenses or licenses to its SQL Server database — and then it applies those discounts to the cloud portion of the contract.</p>
<p>The net cost of the contract remains basically the same to the customer as if they didn't have the cloud services attached.&nbsp;</p>
<p>But this also means Microsoft gets to claim some portion of that contract as cloud revenue,<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-cloud-business-the-good-the-bad-the-ugly-2014-11"> a source told previously told us.</a></p>
<p>This was a smart try-before-you-buy strategy that allowed Microsoft to funnel funding toward the cloud unit. But it was risky. If enterprise customers didn't start using the cloud, blowing through their credits and then paying for more, Microsoft didn't really land them as cloud customers, even though its balance sheet made it look like it did.</p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54f50011eab8ea602d0c2454-650-400/microsoft azure.png" border="0" alt="Microsoft Azure"></p>
<p>And that's exactly what's happening in some cases.</p>
<p>"The dirty secret is that very few customers are actually taking Microsoft up on using Azure in any meaningful way," this source told us in November.</p>
<p>Another source at Microsoft recently told us, "Microsoft got the money, and the customer didn’t use the cloud."</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This source offered an example of how Microsoft negotiated a huge multi-million dollar contract with a customer where it bundled in tens of thousands of dollars of cloud credits, "where they have ZERO current plans to use Azure (nor even security approval to use it)."</span></p>
<p>This source told us, "Don’t get me wrong, some customers are going gangbusters with Azure and doing great things with it." But in some sales districts, fewer than 20% of the enterprise customers account for 90% of the Azure consumption, the source told us.</p>
<p>That's good for the sales people managing those 20%. It's not so good for everyone else.</p>
<h2>How widespread?</h2>
<p>Another source close to Microsoft said the problem was not widespread.&nbsp;</p>
<p>"Having looked at thousands of EA agreements and Azure agreements, etc., a very, very small percentage" of these contracts include Azure credits that companies neither wanted or used, this source told us.&nbsp;</p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/54f50096eab8ea5b2f0c2454-1200-924/microsoft-satya-nadella-talks-to-troops.jpg" border="0" alt="Microsoft Satya Nadella talks to troops"></p>
<p>As for the discounts, this person acknowledged what we'd heard about how those discounts are applied to other products, so Microsoft can still charge money for Azure, but believed the practice wasn't common.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"We didn't discount Azure, we discounted other products to use that as funding for Azure on the EA. That would be a pretty small scenario of folks doing that type of thing," this source explained.</span></p>
<p>He said that Microsoft would NOT be "losing money" on these contracts.</p>
<p>"It's that the customer would pay for something [Azure] they didn't use. The Azure agreement is a year-long agreement. And so if it's something that lands on a customer's EA, they have a year to leverage and use that service, or they don't get the value of what they pay for it."</p>
<p>This source also confirmed, "Yes, we are asking our sales people to get customers to use Azure because that's basically how we charge for Azure."</p>
<p>However, other sales folks have told us that the practice of bundling in Azure is extremely common.</p>
<p>Software licensing consultant Cynthia Farren also confirmed this when we reported on the situation in November.</p>
<p>"I have also heard some Microsoft sales folks go so far as to boast that all of the EAs [enterprise agreements] they manage have some cloud services on them but have also explained that not all of them have implemented those services yet," she told us.</p>
<h2>Wall Street is asking</h2>
<p>The crux of the issue is that insiders are starting to understand this contract situation and are asking Microsoft to disclose more details.</p>
<p>When Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in January that Microsoft's cloud business is <a href="http://seekingalpha.com/article/2852026-microsofts-msft-ceo-satya-nadella-on-q2-2015-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single">on track to be a $5.5 billion business</a>, industry experts wanted more details.</p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54650f406bb3f77e4dc7e87c-200-200/cynthia farren.jpg" border="0" alt="Cynthia Farren">"What I would really like to know is how many of their total number of users have ever been activated. I’d really like to see a more transparent way of reporting the numbers (such as active users, etc)," Farren previously told us.</p>
<p>So would some Wall Street analysts.</p>
<p>In January, during the quarterly analyst meeting, Citi's Walter Pritchard came right out and asked Nadella and CFO Amy Hood about actual user numbers on Office 365, which sources tell us is starting to pick up steam with enterprises.</p>
<p>"Can you talk about deployment rates? I know you've done a good job of getting those into contracts, how many customers are actually running it, running their email and SharePoint and other products in the cloud versus just having the rights to it?" Pritchard asked.</p>
<p>Management sidestepped an answer. Instead of <a href="http://seekingalpha.com/article/2852026-microsofts-msft-ceo-satya-nadella-on-q2-2015-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single">reporting active users, Hood said</a>, "The actual goal is the commitment that the customers show to the movement to the cloud and then moving them quickly as we can."</p>
<h2>The pressure is on&nbsp;</h2>
<p>Now, Microsoft is apparently pushing sales people to make sure their customers use the cloud services they sold.</p>
<p>"The fundamental challenge is that Microsoft incented sales teams to sell Office 365 and Azure aggressively without regard for whether the customer needed, wanted, or had a plan for using it," one source told us.</p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/54f500eb69bedd8a5e150751-798-598/microsoft-employee-skype-2.jpg" border="0" alt="Microsoft employee Skype">Sales bonuses were tied to how many customers they could get to agree to add cloud services to their contracts, sources told us.</p>
<p>What's new: Microsoft is starting to factor "consumption" into a sales person's quotas, and into team managers' quotas as well, our sources say — and doing this for contracts that were already signed.</p>
<p>"The new compensation model punishes the sales team because the customer is not 'consuming' the cloud offering(s) that they 'bought.' Many districts are having monthly or bi-weekly 'consumption business review' calls to whip the [sales people] into getting<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;this done," one source told us.</span></p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54f501486bb3f7337dff49fb-461-345/office-ipad-2.jpg" border="0" alt="office ipad" style="color: #222222; line-height: 22.5px;"></p>
<p>By "getting this done" our source means getting their customers to use all the cloud they paid for and then some.</p>
<p>And while some sales people are freaking out about how they will get their customers to actually use the cloud, Amazon and Google are recruiting cloud talent from Microsoft like crazy.</p>
<p>One source told us Microsoft "is suffering heavy losses on the technical side of its enterprise sales force to Amazon and Google at exactly the wrong time."</p>
<h2>'Consumption' is all the rage</h2>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54ed1522ecad04ba228b4574-1000-750/hp-cfo-cathie-lesjak.jpg" border="0" alt="HP CFO Cathie Lesjak">The focus from acquiring customers to "consumption" isn't just going on at Microsoft.</p>
<p>In January, HP CFO Cathie Lesjak openly fessed up that HP was working on it when HP reported earnings and she talked to analysts on the quarterly conference call.</p>
<p><a href="http://seekingalpha.com/article/2947456-hewlett-packards-hpq-ceo-meg-whitman-on-q1-2015-results-earnings-call-transcript">When HP reported its quarterly earnings in late February</a>, software revenue was down down 5% last year from the year-ago quarter, "We continue to shift our portfolio and operating model to SaaS and subscription based offerings. Customer consumption behavior and the need to adjust sales motions accordingly created a near-term revenue headwind," she admitted.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, cloud computing's king, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, <a href="http://seekingalpha.com/article/2951776-salesforce-com-inc-crm-marc-russell-benioff-on-q4-2015-results-earnings-call-transcript">downright bragged about how customers are using Salesforce's cloud</a> when the company announced its year-end earnings in late February. Salesforce is one of Microsoft's biggest cloud competitors.</p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/54ee677becad04ed4e3b3560-1200-924/salesforcecom-marc-benioff.jpg" border="0" alt="Salesforce.com Marc Benioff">"We've delivered 177 billion transactions for our customers in the quarter. That's up 68% from a year ago. You can see our usage rates are soaring. Customers are using our product more aggressively than ever before. That's an average of nearly 3 billion enterprise transactions every single business day. That's unprecedented in enterprise technology. No other enterprise platform comes close to that," he said.</p>
<p>Salesforce has for years published some of its <a href="https://trust.salesforce.com/trust/status/">usage statistics on the internet.</a></p>
<p>Now, the pressure is on for Nadella to start talking details about consumption. And, clearly, before he does that, he intends to have something really good to say.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-cloud-business-the-good-the-bad-the-ugly-2014-11" >SOURCE: Here's The 'Dirty Little Secret' Of Microsoft's Cloud Business</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-cloud-consumption-problem-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> Microsoft